\u201cCanal Street is a blood-pressure-raising corridor. If I had my preference it should start on the eastern side,\u201d said Wellington Chen, the executive director of the Chinatown Partnership. \u201cI guess it\u2019s because the people were making a ruckus on the eastern side of Canal. They have no solution to offer, so that is what is happens; other people go first and we may not get around to you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chen\u2019s comments referred to a group of local opponents who\u2019ve slammed DOT\u2019s plan for eastern portion of Canal Street in Chinatown because it calls for repurposing of curbside parking spots for wider sidewalks on blocks often dominated by sidewalk vendors<\/a>.<\/p>\n A year ago, a speeding driver coming off the Manhattan Bridge<\/a> slammed into and killed 55-year-old cyclist Kevin Cruickshank and 63-year-old May Kwok, and within 24 hours a second driver smashed into a food truck injuring two others. Now, after months of silence<\/a> from DOT about years-in-the-works safety fixes, officials will finally present an update to Manhattan Community Boards 2 and 1 on Tuesday<\/a> and Wednesday<\/a> of next week.<\/p>\n The decision to start with the less-dangerous phase of the project flies in the face of Mayor Mamdani\u2019s pledge to speed up safety redesigns<\/a> where \u201cthey\u2019re most needed,\u201d rather than the usual trench warfare that privileges bad faith, car-first complaints.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you talk about Mamdani and his legacy, tackling those problems, that\u2019s what Canal needs, that\u2019s what the community needs,\u201d said Joe Tedeschi<\/a>, a Chinatown resident and advocate for more space on Canal. \u201cThe community has been waiting decades. It seems to me just a failure of our government, it\u2019s a disappointment.\u201d<\/p>\n Community Board 3, which covers the eastern end of Canal, won\u2019t have a meeting about Canal until September, according to its District Manager Susan Stetzer, who told Streetsblog that DOT was considering \u201ca lot of information.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re phasing it, and that [portion west of Broadway] is all that\u2019s being covered right now,\u201d said Betty Kay, who chairs Community Board 1\u2019s Transportation and Street Activity committee. \u201cWe were told that\u2019s the portion that would be done at this time. We have no dates of anything that\u2019s east of that.\u201d<\/p>\n More space, less danger<\/p>\n DOT\u2019s two-phased redesign covers Canal Street from the Manhattan Bridge opening at the Bowery, to the Hudson River at West Street [PDF<\/a>] and aims to improve safety and capacity for pedestrians, who make up about two-thirds of people on the corridor but have to squeeze into 10 percent of the public right-of-way.<\/p>\n The proposal, which DOT released last year, expands pedestrian space along the clogged sidewalks east of Broadway and turn the the current eastbound bike lane on Grand Street two-way, closing a gap in the area\u2019s bike network, as Streetsblog reported in September<\/a>.<\/p>\n DOT reps previously said the changes might take several years to complete, due to the project\u2019s scope, but didn\u2019t say where the work would start. Now, it is clear that it will start on the western stretch of Canal, not the more-dangerous eastern stretch.<\/p>\n On the seven eastern blocks between Broadway and Elizabeth Street, DOT wants to replace the curb lanes on both sides with full-length painted sidewalk expansions, so-called \u201cSuper Sidewalks\u201d that the agency previously rolled out in Midtown in 2023<\/a>. Those curbside lanes are supposed to be for moving traffic during rush hour and loading zones in the middle of the day, but are instead filled with illegal parking at all times. (DOT\u2019s proposal conspicuously stops short of Elizabeth Street, where cops from the local police precinct park their cars illegally with abandon.)<\/p>\n The agency also wants to close off a slip lane block of Walker Street east of Baxter Street, creating a larger plaza around the Chinatown information kiosk and reducing cut-through traffic coming from the West Side:<\/p>\n The western portion of the project that will now move forward sooner includes a two-way expansion of the currently east-bound Grand Street bike lane, which will connect to a short new two-way cycle path on Canal Street, from Sixth Avenue to Hudson Street, before continuing on Watts Street to the Hudson River Greenway. <\/p>\n The agency also plans to add painted curb extensions at corners, mostly on the south side of Canal Street from Broadway to West Broadway.<\/p>\n At a raucous DOT feedback session<\/a> with community boards 1, 2 and 3 late last year, some locals slammed DOT for repurposing the part-time curbside parking east of Broadway to make more room for pedestrians, which business owners said \u2013 without evidence \u2013 would snarl traffic and make it harder for people to get to the corridor. <\/p>\n However, DOT had already done a series of surveys<\/a> and outreach since the project started<\/a> in 2022, and its feedback showed a whopping 80 percent support for its efforts. <\/p>\n The potential for a more pedestrian-friendly Chinatown became clear during the Ticker-Tape Parade celebrating the Knicks NBA Championship win last month, when Mayor Mamdani banished cars from Lower Manhattan. <\/p>\n Government leaders and experts have long promised to improve Canal Street without results. <\/p>\n Former Mayor Bill de Blasio\u00a0promised a \u201ccomprehensive\u201d study<\/a>\u00a0of it as part of the 2021 rezoning of SoHo and NoHo. The New York Metropolitan Transportation Council, a regional planning body,\u00a0looked into the corridor<\/a>\u00a0for nearly a decade from 2002-2010, and its Canal Area Transportation Study, or CATS, recommended the city expand space for pedestrians, ban left turns, and set up smarter parking regulation.<\/p>\n Reached for comment, a rep for area City Council Member Chris Marte did not comment directly on the proposed changes to Canal Street.<\/p>\n \u201cWe look forward to seeing next week\u2019s presentation by DOT, and hope that the two-way bike lane along Grand Street that was previously discussed remains in the plan,\u201d said Marte spokesman Simon Kostelanetz. <\/p>\n A DOT spokesman said the agency didn\u2019t want to hold up the upgrades west of Broadway as it continues to \u201cprocess input\u201d from the Chinatown section. <\/p>\n \u201cWe look forward to delivering transformative safety upgrades along the entirety of Canal Street starting this year,\u201d said Vin Barone in a statement. \u201cWe are beginning on the western portion of Canal and Grand streets after making adjustments based on public feedback we\u2019ve received. We are still working through input on the eastern portion and look forward to continuing future, exciting public space and safety upgrades on that end of the corridor.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Mamdani administration apparently won\u2019t redesign the most-congested and dangerous parts of Canal Street this year after some…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295919,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-295918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295918\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Canal-redesign-east-of-Baxter.png\")
DOT planned \u2018Super Sidewalks\u2019 and a slip lane closure for more pedestrian space on Canal. Graphic: DOT<\/p>\n